Kids
by elliemars
Summary: A set of 12 drabbles written to songs. Seifer/Zell, rated from PG to NC-17.


**1. I've Done Everything I Could Do Wrong - Reckless Kelly / time - 4:14 / word count - 144**

Seifer sighs when he returns to his room to find it empty, again - six nights in a row, Zell must be well and truly pissed at him this time, whatever he'd done. He doesn't really even remember; he was pretty drunk at that party, though the deck Zell had given him when they got back had sobered him up real quick. He thinks about phoning the other man, or would that be admitting defeat? But later in the night, in the dark, when he's fucking his hand and wishing it were as hot and tight as Zell's body, smelling the other man's scent on his pillows and realizing that the stiff, unpleasant feeling in his chest is an ache, he gives up caring, fumbling for the phone on the bedside table. He's not even angry when Zell sounds so smug on the other end.

**2. Kids - MGMT / time - 5:03 / word count - 244**

At five, Seifer can bring Zell to his knees with just a cruel word, a well-placed kick to the shins, a fistful of sand to the face. It's so easy it's almost not worth even doing, except the crybaby's reactions are so amusing.

At ten, it gets a bit harder. The twerp developed an interest in martial arts a few months back, and he's got pretty good at imitating those guys he watches in foreign films, getting in with quick jabs to Seifer's kidneys and crazy flying kicks that knock the wind out of him, even as small as Zell is. It takes a little work, but Seifer can bring him down - and pride dictates he must; he's lost a frightful deal of respect since the boy started fighting back.

At fifteen, it's not easy at all. Who'd have thought the little chicken would grow up to be a warrior? Not Seifer, that's for sure; and it sometimes takes his all to come out ahead in their spars which are often more like brawls, broken up by instructors and followed by lectures - not that it ever discourages either of them from meeting again in the dark and quiet of the Training Center, Zell with fists cocked, Seifer's sword in hand.

At twenty, Seifer knows just how to bring Zell to his knees. And only because he knows just how enjoyable an experience it can be does he never mind getting on his first.

**3. Quiet As A Mouse - Margot and the Nuclear So and So's / time - 4:37 / word count - 252**

"_Stoppit!_" Zell hissed, swatting at Seifer's hand, which had been drifting with purpose toward the front of his trousers, but it was barely a protest. Seifer had certainly prevailed through much greater displays of objection.

"Ssh. They'll hear us."

"Someone's definitely gonna hear _you_ when I smack that grin off your stupid face-"

"Zell," Seifer purred, leaning in close - it was awkward; three sides of the closet were all shelving and there was virtually nowhere to move - but so worth it; Zell surrendered wordlessly as Seifer kissed him, deeply and slowly. It was that low murmur of his name, that husky tone just oozing with sex appeal, all dark and forbidding - got Zell every time. But who was he kidding anyway? He only protested for appearance's sake; they both of them knew how much he wanted this, as Seifer's hand slipped deftly down the front of his shorts, finding Zell's cock hard and ready, as always.

"If you can keep your little chicken mouth shut for a while," Seifer murmured, a breath away from Zell's lips - their bodies mashed together in the tiny space, the corner of something jammed into the small of Zell's back, but he didn't much care with Seifer's hand between his legs, wrapped around his dick, stroking and rubbing as if he knew just how Zell liked it, _right there_ - "...I'll show you what I can do with mine later..."

**4. Paul Revere - Beastie Boys / time - 3:41 / word count - 206**

"Well, fancy meeting you here..." Seifer begins, but before he can complete the thought, Zell leaps off his barstool - a remarkably graceful movement, despite the botched landing; he staggers back to his feet, ignoring the glares of the number of bar patrons he fell into, and glowers up at Seifer with an expression of pure drunken hatred.

"If you call me 'chicken-wuss', I swear I'll punch your nose right through your face-"

"Wouldn't dream of it... Dincht," Seifer replies, casting Zell a saccharine smile, to which the martial artist doesn't take kindly. By the time he recovers, stumbling back to his feet, from the first punch he throws and misses, their end of the bar has erupted into an all-out melee; he doesn't even know where Seifer has gone until a white-sleeved arm reaches out from behind the bar to yank him down, out of the brawl, and Zell is too drunk to register for a long couple of moments that Seifer just saved him. He is only just beginning to wonder to himself if Seifer would react badly to a small show of gratitude when the gunblader crawls into his lap and leans in close and offers an apology of his own.

**5. The Resolution - Jack's Mannequin / time - 3:06 / word count - 183**

Mostly it's fast and hard and rough, with Zell up against a wall or on the floor in a corner somewhere; biting and kicking and scratching and fighting his way free from Seifer's grip, only to pin the other man down himself; bleeding lips and bruises on Seifer's arms and Zell's hips; throats raw from screaming, _howling_. Mostly it's about a quick fix; a fuck, hurried and cold and raw, and nothing more.

But Zell finds he likes when it's not - when it's quiet in his dorm room, dark except for the pale luminescence of the glow-in-the-dark star decals he stuck on the ceiling when he was twelve, and all he can see is a glint of silver from the other man's choker as they move, but he can feel everything - every touch, every gentle press of Seifer's fingertips on his skin, every kiss on his neck, down his collarbone - every thrust of Seifer's cock, deep and slow, sometimes for hours, until they both come gasping for air, and then fall asleep without speaking.

**6. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton / time - 3:42 / word count - 232**

"Holy... shit..." Seifer breathes, chest heaving. Zell, next to him on the bed, looks over and smirks.

"Yeah... like... likewise..." he says in reply, taking a moment to catch his breath. "Asshole," he adds, almost as an afterthought. Seifer turns to give him a sharp glare.

"What did you say, chicken-shit?"

"I said you're an asshole," Zell repeats, still grinning, and he sits up on the edge of the bed, searching around on the floor for the sheets they cast off quite some time ago. "For not suggesting we do this sooner."

"Didn't think you'd be up for it," Seifer says with a shrug, but his expression as Zell glances over his shoulder at him is challenging - and now that he knows what it means, Zell decides he rather likes that look.

"I'm up for anything you are, asshole," he shoots back with a cocky quirk of the eyebrow, eliciting a grin from the other man. He stands and wraps the sheet around his waist, wondering just where his clothes got to.

"Care for making a standing appointment?"

"You'd better fucking bet," Zell answers, his smirk unfading, even as he finally identifies what the ragged piece of ripped black cloth at his foot is. _Oh well,_ he thinks unconcernedly, _looks like I'm going commando 'til I get home again..._

**7. The Time, The Light, The Heart - Revere / time - 2:54 / word count - 176**

It takes some getting used to, after that first drunken night - the shift between them that starts out awkward, and gradually over weeks and months moves through uncomfortable and strange and into not unpleasant, and finally arrives at familiar and okay. When Zell looks back, he can never trace exactly how their relationship morphed from bitter rivals, enemies, to this weird thing they have now, less a relationship than a symbiosis.

They have similar needs is all, is the conclusion he always comes to. Physically - in bed, that is - they match up, and Seifer can take what Zell dishes out, and vice versa - which never seems to be the case with the girls he occasionally picks up, usually in a drunken fit of rebellion against himself; but sometimes, when he wakes up in the dead of night gasping, a scream fresh in his throat, the nightmare slipping from his mind like water through his fingers, and Seifer is gripping him just as tightly as he is the other man, he understands how they ended up together.

**8. Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones / time - 5:43 / word count - 281**

"You'd better go," Zell murmurs, his gaze fixed on a spot somewhere to Seifer's left; he hasn't met Seifer's eyes once the whole night, and he sits up on the far side of the bed, staring out the window, his skin painted in the orange glow of the sunrise. Seifer turns the other way, standing to gather his clothes from the floor.

"The trial doesn't start until eleven," he remarks, almost casually; but he knows they both heard the fear in his voice. "I could stay a while longer."

"No, that's okay," Zell says, his tone all finality. He's trying to make it easier for the both of them, but Seifer doesn't like it anyway. He takes his time collecting his clothes and dressing, thinking about all the times he's left Zell's room at dawn - so many times he can't even count - and how nothing in his life has ever been as hard as this.

"Are you..." he begins, but he has to stop and breathe before he can go on, "...sure you don't want to come?"

"Selphie's coming over later to watch it with me on telly," Zell replies, the words all in a rush, as though he's practiced them. Seifer stands by the door for another minute, waiting, but Zell says nothing more.

"Alright, then," Seifer says, one hand on the doorknob; but he can't seem to take another step away. He turns to look back at the other man. "I'll see you later," he says.

Zell looks up, and nods, even though he must know it's a lie. "Okay, later," he agrees, and his eyes are still on Seifer as he leaves, shutting the door slowly behind him.

**9. If You Want Blood (You've Got It) - ACDC / time - 4:37 / word count - 354**

"I can't believe they let you back in here," Zell snarls for the nth time - it was cute for a while, but it's starting to get old now. Seifer smirks anyway.

"No need to pretend you're disappointed, chicken-wuss," he purrs back, loving the way his cool calm only riles Zell up more.

"Oh, I ain't disappointed. Now I got plenty more chances to pound on you," the boy shoots back.

"Why don't you just say what you really mean, Dincht?" Seifer replies, shooting him a pointed look; Zell just stares back blankly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Seifer bites back a sigh. The kid is really an idiot. "Come to my room tonight after curfew," he says silkily, showing his teeth in a feral grin, "if you want to find out. That is, if you think you're up to it."

"Oh, I'm up to it alright!" Zell barks as Seifer turns and leaves, leaving the other boy fuming and perplexed. And when Zell actually shows up at his door, a few hours after lights-out, bouncing on his feet and all ready for a fight, it confirms Seifer's belief that the stupid kid really had no idea what he really meant when he extended that invitation - at least, until Zell pushes his way through the door, and before Seifer is even awake enough to ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing, drops to his knees, tugging at the front of Seifer's sweats - and by the time Seifer can articulate a proper thought again, he's on the floor, and Zell's crawling up from between his legs, wet lips, hair falling down over his eyes, and damn if it isn't the sexiest thing Seifer has ever seen. He's grinning like the cat that got the cream, and he says, "what, no snarky comebacks this time?"

Seifer doesn't answer; just grabs Zell by the front of his shirt and pulls him up into a kiss, to which the other boy doesn't seem to object; but, though he'd never admit it to Zell, he decides that there are times where it's okay to admit defeat.

**10. Your Eyes Are Like Mine - Winterkids / time - 3:50 / word count - 240**

They had agreed not to talk about it again - but, Zell reasoned to himself, they _weren't_ talking; in fact, since they'd got to Seifer's room, they had conversed very little, and most of that stunted, just words and moans that meant little - _yes, more, fuck, just like that, unh, Seifer!_ They'd both drank a little, but they were certainly neither of them drunk - too many of their encounters happened that way, and Zell was pleased in a vague way to find that the first time hadn't just been a drunken fluke - sex with Seifer was amazing, even sober; he wasn't sure he would have expected.

Of course, he hadn't planned at all to sleep with the other man again, but who was he kidding? It was going to happen again, and more, and he couldn't with honesty say he didn't want it to. Seifer's bloody ego had been the foremost objection; but once they got past all the head games, the truth was he was really beginning to like Seifer - and not solely in bed, that was the scariest part. He sighed, looking down at the man sleeping next to him, and gave up wondering how it all came to this - the bottom line was that he was in good danger of falling for the asshole, and he wasn't at all certain he was opposed to the idea.

**11. Creepin' Up The Backstairs - The Fratellis / time - 3:07 / word count - 314**

From an outside view, it was kind of funny - Seifer was always breaking rules, despite being the head of the Disciplinary Committee, where Zell was something of a stickler, a model student really - but the two of them together always spelled trouble, and every instructor well knew it. Quistis knew better than most, in fact, as it always seemed to fall to her to keep Seifer in line, no easy task. She suspected that most of his delinquent behavior was done particularly to rile her up, but Zell was another matter entirely - it was only when Seifer was around that he had trouble keeping his cool, and reasonably, she thought, as the gunblader did have a peculiar skill for pissing him off.

So as she made her way to the infirmary, _again_, she had a pretty strong feeling she knew what the summons was about - and was surprised, when she arrived, to find Seifer and Zell, not sniping and bitching at each other from across the ward as had been the custom, but both sleeping - _together_, in one tiny infirmary bed, Zell half in Seifer's lap, his head resting on the taller boy's shoulder - and for the moment it took her mind to register the fact that it was _really_ weird, she couldn't help but think it was rather cute.

"What happened here?" She asked Kadowaki, who had come up beside her and was looking over the two on the bed with an expression just as perplexed as Quistis felt.

"I've no idea," the doctor replied. "They were in the Training Center this morning and beat each other to high hell. I dosed them both up and left for a few minutes, and then when I came back, they were like this."

"Huh," Quistis said cluelessly.

**12. America - Razorlight / time - 4:10 / word count - 347**

"Zell!" Selphie spots him as he finally emerges from his room late that night, and she runs to meet him. "Where have you...? I mean... I came by earlier, and I phoned, but there was no answer."

"Sorry," he says, "I just... wasn't feeling like company."

"I see," she replies, looking away, as though unsure of what to say next - she looks tired; her eyes are red, as though she spent a good part of the afternoon crying, and Zell waits for her to decide if she wants to bring it up or not. They walk down the hall, towards the cafeteria together.

"Did you, um..." she begins haltingly, "watch the trail?"

"I... I don't really want to talk about it, Selph," Zell answers, and she nods, and doesn't bring it up again. He didn't watch it, in fact - couldn't even turn the telly on, what was the point? Once that door closed behind Seifer, Zell knew it wasn't going to open again. "Wanna grab some supper? I haven't ate all day," he continues, forcing a brittle thread of joviality into his voice - luckily, Selphie seems to take the hint, and follows suit, grinning her silly girl grin and skipping down the hall ahead of him. They eat together and force smalltalk, and it takes Zell so much effort that for a while, he forgets that he'll be going back to an empty room that night, an empty bed.

She walks back with him later, and he declines her offer to come in and hang out for a bit. He enters his room without turning on the light, instead standing just by the door in the dark for a long while, musing. But at length, a rustling sound from by the bed stirs him - and he looks up, but in the dark, there is only a flash of silver, the faint outline of a shadow. "Hey," Seifer says, standing up, and Zell can tell by the tone of his voice that he's smiling.

"Hey," he says back, and he feels his soul breathe a sigh of relief.


End file.
